Ferdy Doernberg

Ferdy Doernberg (born 10 June 1967) is an English-German heavy metal musician. He is the last original member of Rough Silk, which he founded in 1989. He has also performed with Helloween and Holy Moses. Since 1997, he has been the keyboardist for Axel Rudi Pell's band. From 2006 to 2009, he played the keyboards for Eden's Curse, which was founded by Michael Eden (Lead Vocals) and Paul Logue (Bassist).

The English/German slide guitar/keyboards-player and singer/songwriter Ferdy Doernberg was born in 1967 as the son of the British composer and violin-player Martin Doernberg and the German teacher and writer Dr. Gesine Doernberg.

After playing in several school and local bands, he became the lead guitar player of the locally successful punk band "The Wabbles", with whom he played his first over-regional gigs and did his first recordings for a vinyl single. He also played trumpet and piano in a local jazz ensemble for years. His first professional band, Rough Silk, was founded in 1989. Through the years, Ferdy found his own style of playing. As a keyboard player, his favourite instrument is the Hammond organ, the piano and vintage keyboards like the Wurlitzer-piano, accordion and the monophonic Moog synthesizer.

So far, Ferdy Doernberg has released five solo-albums as a singer/songwriter. The first one, Just a piano and a handful of dreams, was released in 1995 on SPV-Records.

Ferdy Doernberg also runs a recording studio, the "Droehnwerk", at Bad Nenndorf, nearby Hanover/ Germany, where he lives. Since 1998, he has produced and engineered albums (or tracks) by Rough Silk, John Wesley Harding, Destruction, Mike Terrana, Taraxacum, Brainstorm, It's M.E., Heavenly, A.O.D., Freedom Call, Masterplan and many more in his studio.

The second one, Storyteller..s Rain - a rock musical was released in 2000 on Massacre-records / Sony. The lyrical concept presented 12 ghost stories with philosophical and ironic undertones, told by the main character called "the Storyteller". The music follows the "ups and downs" of the stories through progressive rock, classic, jazz, heavy metal, folk, country and bombast rock elements. Many unusual acoustic instruments like dobro, violin, sitar, didgeridoo, trumpet, trombone or zither can be heard on the album. Mike Terrana (Yngwie Malmsteen, Tony MacAlpine, Steve Lukather), Axel Rudipell, Roland Grapow, Uli Kusch And Michael Weikath (Helloween), Tom Angelripper (Sodom), Tobias Exxel (Edguy) and all the members of Rough Silk participated on the album.

To promote "Storyteller..s Rain" Doernberg played many shows as a solo artist. Besides solo performances - the largest was on the Wacken-open-air 2000, where Doernberg performed solo just with a Dobro, a lap steel and a piano, between all the louder heavy-metal acts - he also did a tour through Germany supporting John Wesley Harding in 2002. After his solo performance, he and Joerg Ohlsen were also Harding's backing-band (aka "the Barkins"). He also opened for the legendary Thin Lizzy, Jason Ringenberg, Nils Lofgren, Bryan Adams, Jeff Kollman, country singer Rick Monroe (USA) and the German pop-metal band Axxis. With his dark English humor and his intelligent songwriting, Doernberg seems to be able to work with bigger rock-crowds as well as with seated audiences in small folk clubs.

In May 2007 Doernberg's third solo album "..till I run out of road" was released on Rebellion-Records.

As a guitar player, Doernberg fell in love with the slide guitar and all her relatives like lap and pedal steel, dobro and the Hawaiian guitar. Rough Silk have recorded 8 albums (the last one, A new beginning, was released in April 2009), and toured a lot (as headliner and supporting for example Helloween, Deep Purple, Savatage, Saxon, Accept, Whitesnake and Dio) all over Europe. Since 2007, Doernberg is also the lead-vocalist of the band.

Doernberg again played countless solo shows to promote the album and reactivated his first band Rough Silk with new members. They released a new album called "a new beginning" in 2009 and played on several festivals and opened for bands like Sick Of It All, Agent Steel, W.A.S.P. and Demon.

He is still a member of the Axel Rudi Pell band. Doernberg's fourth solo album travelling light was released in December 2009 and is again a singer/songwriter album with a lot of slide guitar and piano features.

Doernberg released his fifth solo album titled a bridge to Dobroland in December 2011.